I don’t know why he should go there, but he must be there; I’ll bring him in a minute!’

Show more

’Back agen?’ she screeched, after some minutes, as if he had that moment said it.

’When father comes back,’ cried the girl, bursting into tears again after a minute’s silence, ’how will he ever find me if I go away!’

He will not be happy for a single minute, till he comes back.’

’tis but a minute, and I’m home.’

’Back in a minute?

He looked at his informant for full a quarter of a minute, and appeared to have the surprise in his mind all the time.

Sissy, my good girl, leave us alone a minute.’

Louisa had sat by her for some minutes, and had spoken to her often, before she arrived at a clear understanding who it was.

Show more again

She was so steadfastly occupied, that many minutes elapsed before she looked up from her work; when she did so Mr. Bounderby bespoke her attention with a hitch of his head.

It was very strange that a young gentleman who had never been left to his own guidance for five consecutive minutes, should be incapable at last of governing himself; but so it was with Tom.

Being left to saunter in the hall a minute or two while Mr. Gradgrind went up-stairs for the address, he opened the door of the children’s study and looked into that serene floor-clothed apartment, which, notwithstanding its book-cases and its cabinets and its variety of learned and philosophical appliances, had much of the genial aspect of a room devoted to hair-cutting.

This minute he expects me, for I could release myself of his presence by no other means.

’Shall I ride up to the house a few minutes hence, innocently supposing that its master is at home and will be charmed to receive me?’

The door not being opened after several minutes, Mrs. Sparsit passed it and repassed it, saw nothing, looked in, and found it empty.

But the surgeon who held the watch, declared five minutes not to have elapsed yet, and sternly admonished them to keep silence.

’Thay the word, and I’ll make a Jothkin of him, out of the wardrobe, in five minutes.’

These men and women were yet in the streets, passing quietly to their homes, when Sissy, who had been called away from Louisa some minutes before, returned.

The word was so sharp, that in ten minutes Mr. Childers, sauntering about the market-place in a pair of slippers, had his cue, and Mr. Sleary’s equipage was ready.

’Now, my friend,’ said Mr. Bounderby, whom he could not have exasperated more, quite unconscious of it though he was, than by seeming to appeal to any one else, ’if you will favour me with your attention for half a minute, I should like to have a word or two with you.

The wide prospect, so beautiful in its stillness but a few minutes ago, almost carried despair to her brave heart, as she rose and looked all round her, seeing no help.

While Nickits (as a man came into my office, and told me yesterday), Nickits, who used to act in Latin, in the Westminster School plays, with the chiefjustices and nobility of this country applauding him till they were black in the face, is drivelling at this minute — drivelling, sir!

I shouldn’t wish to disturb you at your meals, ma’am, particularly tea, knowing your partiality for it,’ said Bitzer, craning a little to look over into the street from where he stood; ’but there’s a gentleman been looking up here for a minute or so, ma’am, and he has come across as if he was going to knock.

Even when their eyes had met, and her sister had approached the bed, Louisa lay for minutes looking at her in silence, and suffering her timidly to hold her passive hand, before she asked: ’When was I brought to this room?’

At five minutes past twelve o’clock next day, he directed Mrs. Bounderby’s property to be carefully packed up and sent to Tom Gradgrind’s; advertised his country retreat for sale by private contract; and resumed a bachelor life.

Yet it is an indubitable fact, within the cognizance of this history, that five minutes after he had left the house in the self-same hat, the same descendant of the Scadgerses and connexion by matrimony of the Powlers, shook her right-hand mitten at his portrait, made a contemptuous grimace at that work of art, and said ’Serve you right, you Noodle, and I am glad of it.’

The two travelled all night, except when they were left, for odd numbers of minutes, at branch-places, up illimitable flights of steps, or down wells — which was the only variety of those branches — and, early in the morning, were turned out on a swamp, a mile or two from the town they sought.

That done, he strolled away idly, stopping in the street and looking up it and down it, and lifting his hat off and putting it on again, and yawning and stretching himself, and exhibiting all the symptoms of mortal weariness to be expected in one who had still to wait until the next train should come in, an hour and forty minutes hence.